Recently, extensive research has been directed to produce organic materials with good engineering properties and environmental stability which are also electrically conductive. Lightweight, stable, conductive organic materials would be useful in applications such as battery components, electrodes, electromagnetic interference shields, circuitry components, lightning tolerant aircraft surfaces, and electromagnetic radiation absorbers (e.g., EMP protection). There are at present two main approaches to producing conductive organic materials. These two methods are (1) preparation of highly conjugated polymers (such as polyacetylene), which are then doped with certain additives, and (2) dispersion of conductive filler particles (such as metal powders, chopped carbon fibers, etc.) in common organic resins. Numerous organic polymers of the polyacetylene type can be "doped" to conductivity. However, due to problems with dopant migration, processing difficulties, and poor environmental and chemical (e.g., oxygen) stabilities, these conducting organic polymers have not as yet realized wide application. With regard to prior art two-phase conductive materials, particularly non-conductive organic polymers and conductive filler particles, the conductivity is largely determined by close contacts between the conductive filler particles. Thus, often a high concentration (typically 30 to 40% by volume) of conductive filler is necessary to provide a continuous pathway for charge "percolation".
These prior art organic materials suffer from problems of uniformity and reproducibility, due primarily to the difficulty of obtaining uniform and consistent distribution of the filler particles. What is desired, therefore, is the preparation of a new type of electrically conductive composite material which has a homogeneous distribution of filler particles, and this composite would have substantially advantageous properties and processability when compared with the currently available materials.